1. Healing part 1

Part 1: Description of Healing tools – Getting to know your spells

Before I describe how to heal, I need to introduce you to the spells and how they will work.

Single-target HOTS:

The primary tools of resto druids are our Heal over Time (HOT) spells. When your direct heals crit, they apply Living Seed to the target. Living Seed provides a buff on your target that will heal them for 50% of the crit amount the next time your target is hit.

Lifebloom(instant) is your tank HOT. This only stacks once now. You can only have this on one person at a time. You can either refresh it directly by casting lifebloom or by casting any of your single-target direct heals. Now that it doesn’t stack, allowing it to bloom will often be worthwhile to heal your tank.

Rejuvenation(instant) is a primary healing spell for you as a raid heal. Rejuv works best on people who are likely to be taking damage over time to benefit from the most ticks. You should use this as your primary heal for sprinkling around on raid members instead of using single-target direct heals when there is a lot of people taking damage. Feel free to spam rejuv around the raid as much as your mana allows. This spell will last 15 seconds at level 100 (or 18 seconds with the Germination talent – the germination talent also allows two rejuvs to be on the same person).

Multi-target AOE heals:

We now have a fairly good set of abilities for AOE healing, with three main AOE healing spells. Note that there have been changes to all three of these abilities.

Wild Growth(1.5 sec cast, 8 to 10 sec cooldown) is an AOE heal that costs a lot of mana. Use this when you have 3 or more wounded people who need immediate healing.

Tranquility(channeled over 7 sec, 3 min cooldown) –When you channel this over time, everyone in your party/raid is healed for a generous amount. Use this as your emergency AOE heal, and try plan in advance which phases to use it (in most raid encounters, it’s possible to plan ways to use it in heavy AOE phases).

Wild Mushroom (instant, 30 second duration) – This provides a stationary ground-targeted HOT (ticks on 3 people at a time) and then goes away after the 30 second duration ends. As this is mana-expensive to move around, the preference is to target groups of people who will be relatively stationary for the full 30 seconds. Depending on glyphs, you either drop the shroom at the feet of your target, or target the ground directly using the targeting circle (depends entirely on your own preference). Wild Mushroom no longer has a bloom direct heal effect.

Single-target direct heals:

We have three single-target direct healing spells. Note that Nourish has been removed.

Swiftmend(instant, 15 sec cooldown) puts a medium-size direct heal on a target effected by a rejuv/regrowth HOT. Swiftmend activates the harmony mastery; similar to the other direct heals. As a great single-target burst heal, to use on tanks or raid members that need a quick burst.

Healing Touch(2.5 sec cast time, mana expensive). Heals for a large amount, with a high mana cost and a long cast time. You can use this to refresh Lifebloom on your target. Use this when you need a big heal on a tank or raid/party member and you want to conserve mana. You want to macro your Nature’s Swiftness talent to this spell, since it is our largest direct healing spell.

Regrowth This is a mana-expensive, fast heal. Use this when you get omen of clarity for mana-free casts (note that this is the only spell Omen of Clarity works with anymore). The glyph of regrowth takes away the HOT component and increases the crit chance to 100%, making it more reliable as a quick burst heal, especially in 5-man situations. In 20-man mythics, the long HOT component (allowing for swiftmending) may be a better option, especially if you take the rampant growth talent.